


Pathetic

by Duckseamail



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, I dunno what the ship’ll be yet, I’ll Take Suggestions, Jeremy is...Having Trouble(TM), Math homework is involved, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, also knitting, there will be fluff soon(or at least calmness)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-10 13:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckseamail/pseuds/Duckseamail
Summary: Jeremy has had a rough day, and nothing seems to be going in his favor. Things snowball until he goes to the backroom of a payless shoe store with $600 in cash. And then life finally starts to look up thanks to some pretty weird technology.--abandoned, but if you're particularly moved by it, feel free to continue/adopt--





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so I've posted this before, decided I didn't like it, took it down and edited it a bit and I think I'm ready for it to be on the interwebs again! Possible tw: self-hatred, and scratching at oneself (no blood, but its kinda descriptive)

Jeremy stared at the math homework. It was only the second week of junior year and he already felt lost.

It had made sense in class when his math teacher showed them. Jeremy had even been excited to get it done early because he actually understood it all this time.

But now, he was sitting at his desk, and only on the fifth problem. 

Third problem technically. He skipped two of them earlier because they didn’t make any sense. Well, they did, Jeremy just didn’t know how to get from the part he _doesn’t_ understand to the part he _does_.

Jeremy curled his hand into a fist around the mechanical pencil, one of the nice ones, and flipped it so he could start over. He turned the little knob to get more eraser, but it stopped moving after half a twist.

He twisted at it again, harder. It still didn’t move. _Stupid eraser_.

He’d been fiddling with the knob all day throughout his classes. It had been weirdly calming. Watching the little eraser twist back and forth and hoping he wouldn’t be cold-called on by his teacher.

 _Stupid me._

Jeremy grabbed the back of the pencil and forcefully removed the segment that held the eraser mechanism. It made him feel better, but only for a minute. He looked at the plastic clip attached to the side. He took it in his fingers, and as hard as he could, pulled it until the plastic bent a bit.

Jeremy dropped the messed up pencil back onto the notebook. He’d ruined it.

Well, not really, the pencil still functioned like it was supposed to. But it was a really nice one and now it looked weird.

Jeremy took a deep breath. It’s ok. He had another one in his pencil pouch. He searched through the small bag, but there were only a few pens. Where was his other pencil? He couldn’t do math homework in pen! He’d just mess it up like usual and then wouldn’t be able to erase any of it.

He stared at his notebook, still open to his incomplete homework. He really _really_ wanted to crumple it up. 

Jeremy took another deep breath and moved away from the desk. If he crumpled it now, he’d just be even madder later.

He should do something actually productive. Yesterday he’d started the birthday present he was going to give to Michael. It was a scarf with single blocks of color so that when it was done, it would go red, orange, teal, pink, white, and then yellow. If it all went well, it should abstractly resemble Pac-Man chasing the ghosts.

Jeremy had finished the first color block, which had been surprisingly easy to knit once he got the hang of it, so now was the perfect time to start the orange.

He walked over to the bag where he was keeping the project and yarn and pulled out the orange ball. When he had been looking up knitting tips online, he’d read that starting the yarn from the inside of the ball rather than the outside kept it from tangling when it was pulled on. Doing that with the red yarn yesterday had worked wonderfully so he would do the same with the orange.

He just had to find the inside end. It wasn’t super hard yesterday because the yarn had been partially unraveled when he’d bought it, so doing the same thing with a neatly wrapped ball should be even easier.

Jeremy put his fingers into the center of the yarn and pulled at a few orange loops. None of them was the end, so he took a few more and pulled at those too. When that didn’t work, he turned it to the other side, and pulled a few strands from there, getting more frustrated as he went.

He growled out loud and pulled harder. And the whole inside section came out, leaving him holding a bunch of tangled orange yarn. It was a mess. That he’d created. He was so _dumb_. Jeremy was awful with knots and he couldn’t ask Michael to help him untangle it because it would ruin the surprise!

Jeremy scrunched the tangled mess into his hand before throwing it as hard as he could across the room. It didn’t get very far, not only because it was yarn, but also because Jeremy was _weak._

And stupid. And thin. And too tall. And he had acne all over his forehead and even some by his chin and nose.

His acne. Jeremy had almost forgotten about it. A few weeks ago he’d gotten another face wash to get rid of the scars, but everything was still there, clear as day, all over his face.

Jeremy reached up and scratched at his forehead with his nails. He found a pimple that had appeared a few days ago and picked at it, before moving on to one that had been there for what felt like months. 

Soon Jeremy was scratching all over his face. He wanted it all _gone_. He hated how he looked, especially his face. He just wanted to tear it off. Then all the acne would be gone for good. 

Jeremy moved his hand from his face and down the back of his shirt and picked at a tiny bit of acne that he’d recently discovered on his back. It wasn’t as much as his awful face; just a few spread around. But he wanted them eradicated too. He scratched harder, lying on the floor so he could reach better.

He could see the yarn from where he was. It was next to his desk with the math homework he was too dumb to understand. _I hate it._

He scratched at his back. _I hate it._

Jeremy moved his hand back to his face and scratched more at his forehead and chin. _I hate it I hate it I hate it._

He felt a couple tears dribble out of his eyes. They made his fingers a little wet but he didn’t stop, just moved to his back again. 

He was so pathetic, lying on the floor scratching all over himself. Who _does_ that? Jeremy wanted it all to go away. 

His acne, and if he was lucky his entire face.

The stupid scarf that Michael wouldn’t like.

The math that he didn’t understand.

_I hate it. I hate it. I hate it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you all liked the beginning of this story since you got to this end note. I'm almost done with a second chapter, and while I'll post it anyway, it'd be really nice to hear from people in the comments about what you think of this so far? (I crave validation)  
> Thank you so so so much for reading and have a lovely rest of your day/night (idk you could be reading this at 1 am. I do that a lot)


	2. Chapter 2

“ _Jeremy!!_ ”

His dad was yelling up the stairs for the third time. Apparently, there was dinner. Jeremy was pretty sure it would only be room temperature Spaghetti-O’s and he wasn’t hungry anyway, so he just kept staring at the ceiling and ignored his dad. 

Jeremy had moved from the floor to his bed. He was feeling calmer but still frustrated. He dragged his hand slowly along the blanket, focusing intently on the back and forth movement and considering his options.

He could text Michael. He didn’t have to tell him that the reason was that he was feeling shitty. He could just pretend to be happy and hope that interacting would take his mind off things. Or he could try and do his homework again...but even on a regular day, he wouldn’t want to do that. Pretty much the only other thing he could do was go downstairs and have dinner with his dad, but he was fairly certain he wouldn’t be wearing any pants and seeing tangible evidence of how shitty his dad was feeling wouldn’t help at all.

Texting Michael was the only choice that didn’t sound painfully awkward or include torture by trigonometry, and there was the added bonus of being able to stay in bed. 

Jeremy reached his arm down to the floor to grab his phone from where it was charging. 

His arm was too short to reach. Of _course_ the one time it’s actually useful for him to be a stick he couldn’t come through. Ugh. Jeremy wiggled his fingers to try and snag the edge of his phone. _Almost there_... He stretched a bit farther and pulled the phone closer with just the one finger that could reach it.

Ok. He had the phone. Ok.

Jeremy pulled up the messaging app and hovered his finger over the screen. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead. What would start a conversation that wouldn’t end in Jeremy having to talk about how he was feeling?

Jeremy sent him a picture of a piglet. It was probably a really weird thing to do, but Michael was also a weird person. Jeremy thought he’d appreciate it. 

He wasn’t left waiting for his reaction for long because the little dots that meant Michael was typing popped up almost immediately.

Michael  
_cute pig man_

_i was just thinking about_  
having pancakes and bacon for  
dinner tho 

_would that b 2 insensitive  
now_

_stop guilt tripping me into  
going hungry jeremy_

_if i die from starvation itll b all  
ur fault_

_:P_

All these texts came in one after the other. Jeremy could imagine Michael typing away furiously, and saying exactly what came to mind. He didn’t understand how people could just do that. It was one of many skills he apparently didn’t have.

Jeremy  
_Nah, I don’t think it’s  
insensitive_

_Though I am_  
questioning why you’re gonna  
have breakfast for dinner 

Michael  
_its noy breakfast for dinner_

_its pancakes and bacon 4  
dinner_

That made Jeremy smile. Of course, Michael would make that distinction. In his mind sushi from a 7/11 was lunch. Well, that and a slushie. Jeremy didn’t know how on earth Michael was never caught sneaking in and out of school. He did it almost every day and had been for over a year, but he’d never ever been given a detention for being off campus. And it’s not like the teachers didn’t know. Because really, you show up to class with a 7/11 slushie and you _didn’t_ leave school? 

Jeremy wished he had the confidence to go with Michael. But since he was… well, _him_ , he’d get caught before he even got outside. And probably get a week’s worth of after-school detentions. 

That sort of thing happened to him a lot. Teachers wouldn’t take any notice of Jeremy at all when he was just sitting quietly in the middle of the classroom, but as soon as he got up to go to the bathroom without asking, just like all the popular kids, it was like he was the only person in the room the teacher could see. Then he was subjected to the muffled snickers of all his classmates. Even the nice ones.

Michael  
_jeremy_

Oh right. The rules of conversation dictated that he should have responded to his best friend instead of spacing out for…Jeremy looked at the clock, 5 minutes. 

Jeremy  
_Fine, you win_

_I guess pancakes can  
be dinner_

Michael  
_thats all i needed  
2 heere_

Jeremy  
_Those jokes got old 6  
years ago_

Michael  
_did not_

_but the funnyness of my jokes can  
be debated at a different time_

_like friday. do u want  
to sleep over_

_i already asked my moms and  
theyr fine with u coming over_

The weird thing about seeing Michael every day at school was that sometimes, Jeremy didn’t realize exactly how long it had actually been since they’d hung out together anywhere outside of lunch or their shared classes. It made for a strange kind of loneliness that would settle over Jeremy.

Michael always seemed to be able to tell when it had just about gotten to be too much for him. Maybe that meant he felt it too?

Jeremy  
_Yeah, for sure!_

_My dad is fine with it too_

Jeremy didn’t actually know if that was true, but his Dad had never noticed all the other times when Jeremy had gone to Michael’s house without asking.

Michael  
_rad ^_^_

_gtg eat my (completly valid) dinner_

Jeremy  
_Yeah, same_

Michael  
_seeu tmrw dude_

Jeremy  
_Bye_

Now that he’d told Michael he was going to eat dinner, Jeremy kind of felt like it would count as lying to his best friend if he didn’t actually do that. _Ugh_. He took a deep breath and pushed the cozy blanket back to the edge of the bed as quickly as possible. It was times like these, where Jeremy could really _tell_ that his bedroom was the coldest in the house. 

Jeremy hopped across the floor, and flung open his door, only to put his foot directly into something slimy and kind of cold. There was a clatter, and Jeremy looked down to see a bowl of Spaghetti-O's overturned onto his foot and the floor. Gross.

Jeremy only felt the slightest bit of satisfaction with the knowledge that he had correctly guessed what his dad was making for dinner. But now that dinner had made a mess that he’d have to clean up.

He flipped the bowl over and hopped down the hall to the bathroom, trying not to get food all over the floor. Jeremy flicked the light switch on and grimaced at the brightness. Ok. Firsts things first: Get the gross unoriginal dinner off of his foot. He swiped a towel from the rack and hopped over to the sink. Hot water on, towel under water, towel on foot, towel in the hamper. Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4 done. 

Jeremy's mouth quirked up into a little half smile. This was like a videogame. Sorta. The next goal to complete was cleaning up the hallway. This wouldn't be so bad.

After cleaning up the carpet using the last bit of the Nature's Miracle spray from when they'd had a dog and a lot of paper towels, Jeremy picked up the bowl and looked at the remaining contents. He briefly considered leaving it in front of his dad’s bedroom door, before remembering that his dad would see it when he walked up to it, so there was no reason not to put it in the dishwasher. 

Jeremy went down the stairs and dashed through the dark dining room into the kitchen. He pushed aside an empty pizza box from two nights ago, today’s paper, and a random jar of dull pencils to reach the small compost bin. He scraped the remaining Spaghetti-O's onto the top and noticed that it was pretty full. He should put it out in the alley soon to be collected. 

After placing the empty bowl in the sink -the dishwasher had already been turned on and Jeremy had learned his lesson about opening the dishwasher while it was on- he quietly walked to the living room and watched his dad watch TV for a few minutes. Jeremy was just turning to leave when the floor creaked a lot louder than usual. His dad looked up.

“Oh, hey Jeremy. Did you see your dinner? I put it outside your room when you didn’t come downstairs earlier.”

Jeremy grimaced a little bit. “Yeah, I saw it.”

“Good.” His dad looked at him for a minute. It was a very awkward silence, and a lot of Jeremy wanted to just cut off the conversation and go back to his bedroom. But the small part that wanted to stay and hear if his dad would say anything worthwhile won out, and he stuck around, waiting for the silence to be broken. “Are you going to go to bed, then?”

Well, that was disappointing and most definitely not worth trying to make a deeper conversation out of.

“Yup. Just came over here to say goodnight.” That wasn’t a total lie, Jeremy thought, biting his thumbnail absentmindedly. It hadn’t been his purpose, but now that he was talking with his dad, he might as well let him know he was going to bed. It was a school night after all, and he really wanted to sleep.

“Alright, well goodnight then, Private.” He gave a weak salute before turning his attention back to the TV that had been running throughout their entire conversation. If you could even call this mess a “conversation”

“‘Night.” 

Jeremy walked slowly up the stairs and into his room, clicking off the lights and sinking down onto his bed. The blankets were soft, and his alarm for the morning was set, so he let himself drift off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you all liked the beginning of this story since you got to this end note. I'm almost done with a second chapter, and while I'll post it anyway, it'd be really nice to hear from people in the comments about what you think of this so far? (I crave validation)  
> Thank you so so so much for reading and have a lovely rest of your day/night (idk you could be reading this at 1 am. I do that a lot)


End file.
